“Voice”* won the ECHR: the court admitted that the state violated the freedom of expression of opinion

A decision that had to wait 10 years

“Voice”* won the ECHR: the court admitted that the state violated the freedom of expression.

On November 16, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made a positive decision on the complaint of the Voice Association*.

The essence of the matter

In 2011, during the election campaign in the State Duma of Russia, the state was deployed by the pressure campaign for the Voice association*. One of her episodes was the opposition to the “Map of Violations”: DDOS attacks, attempts to discredit the project in the federal media and a fine for publishing citizens' messages about election violations.

The Chairman of the CEC of Russia Vladimir Churov and a group of deputies appealed to the General Prosecutor's Office demanding to hold a “voice”* accountable. The prosecutor’s office applied to the court, where she stated that the work of “violations” and the publication of information on the Voice website* allegedly fell under the ban on publication within five days before the vote of the results of public opinion polls, forecasts of election results and other studies related to the election campaign. On December 2, 2011, the justice of the peace found the “Voice”* guilty and fined the Association for 30 thousand rubles.

The decision of the ECHR

As a result of the consideration of the ECHR case, he concluded that the persecution of the Voice association* violates Article 10 (“Freedom of expressing opinions”) of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: “Everyone has the right to freely express their opinion. This right includes freedom to adhere to its opinion and freedom to receive and disseminate information and ideas without any intervention by public authorities and regardless of state borders ... ”The court indicated that information on a“ map of violations ”cannot be considered a publication of a public opinion survey and, accordingly, does not violate Russian elections legislation.

In his decision, the ECHR indicated that the excessive coverage of electoral legislation in relation to the “period of silence”, which extends all materials regarding the current elections, how this is interpreted and applied by Russian courts and is confirmed by the authorities, in this case, disproportionately prevented the implementation of freedom of dissemination of information and ideas on the issues of free and fair elections. The court believes that observers for the elections should be able to attract public attention to the alleged violations of electoral legislation and procedures as they arise, otherwise such publications would lose most of their value for society. The indefinite nature of the prosecution prevented the fulfillment of the “voice”* of its function of the “public controller”.

This decision means that the established prohibitions cannot apply to the materials of public controllers about violations - this is qualified as an unjustified state intervention in the freedom of expression.

Thus, the “Voice”* won the ECHR. Ahead of a few more cases on our complaints.

Original